


These Firefly Sons

by doomcanary



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2018-01-16 08:17:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1338478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomcanary/pseuds/doomcanary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In comparison to Merlin, a dragon is a vast and timeless thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Firefly Sons

Merlin is not, under normal circumstances, a particularly careworn man. His life is becoming more complex now, as Uther Pendragon ages and becomes slowly more frail; as his master, his destiny, becomes not a prince but a future king. But Merlin's slender shoulders bear that burden with apparent ease; his smile is as ready and as gentle, his laughter as free.

It is not this Merlin that slouches down the hidden steps that lead to the dragon's lair. This Merlin is slumped and withdrawn into himself, walking close to the wall as if he wishes he could sink into it and be gone. His eyes are cast down, their blue turned to grey by the shadow of his brows, and his mouth is set in a tight, unhappy line. He sidles into the cavern like a thief into a seedy inn, and he slouches against the wall for some minutes before he speaks. The dragon, curled on its rocky perch, watches him through golden eyes, slits that gleam like lanterns in the gloom.

“Have I done the wrong thing?” Merlin asks.

For the first time in its life, the dragon gives a simple answer.

“Yes,” it says.

 

 

The dragon watches as Merlin slides down the wall, his bony frame folding like a puppet collapsing. This little human boy, this child of forces his own tiny mind can barely comprehend; in comparison to him, a dragon is a vast and timeless thing. The dragon knows it is the Old Magic incarnate, the embodiment of that which gives Albion life. Merlin is a tiny, important soul; a firefly, and yet one that cannot be ignored. In the dragon's vision, a dark fluid like half-melted snow oozes from around Merlin's feet; spreads across the rocky ledge he sits on, and begins to slither in lumps and sudden collapses over the edge. Merlin is a creature of the Old Magic too, and it answers his call with every breath; the dragon is watching Albion bleed for its son. There is such a depth of misery in him, such a wound, that the land itself weeps; even a dragon cannot remain entirely unmoved.

“You had no choice, young warlock,” it says to Merlin.

The dark fluid coalesces and cracks, into shards like splintered glass.

“I've fucked up my destiny.”

“Destiny is greater than you know, Merlin. The road to fulfilling it is rarely easy and smooth.”

There is a long pause; slowly, Albion's blood crawls away from Merlin. He is left in the centre of an island of dry, sterile rock.

“I've fucked it up. I've lost him. For good,” he says.

The dragon is silent, resettling its head upon its foreclaws and closing its eyes. The path before Merlin is an arduous one, and it is one he must travel for himself. It is not the dragon's place to save Merlin his lesson; petty interference would destroy the future of Albion. And so the dragon does as it must: bides its time. It hears the sound of Merlin wearily standing, and the scuff of his feet on every stone step as he leaves. Distantly, the dragon wonders whether it is possible to understand why Albion's firefly child rails so often against destiny and fate.

 

 

The young Pendragon does not often visit the dragon. To be precise, he has visited it once: as a fair-haired child of perhaps eight years of age, white with terror and held firmly in place by his father's hand.

That he stands before the dragon now is indicative, undoubtedly. The dragon is uneasy, however; there is a cloud obscuring its vision, something roiling and dark, like a storm on the face of destiny itself. It cannot tell what the heir's presence means. It leans forward, arches its long neck through chilly air and levels its eyes with the royal brat's from mere feet away; the child has grown into a tall and well-muscled young man, handsome even. True to his bloodline the boy does not flinch, though his eyes widen and the scent of alarm rolls off him like mist off a mire. Underneath the stubborn courage, there is a hint of something more; curiosity, perhaps. The greatness of heart destiny foretells for the last Pendragon king. The dragon curls its lip, exposing teeth as tall as the boy is, and withdraws to curl into itself upon the rock. It will not flatter this petty warlord's spawn with dramatic exits and rage.

The sound of a sigh catches an echo, and reverberates around the cavern. The dragon slits open an eye.

“I'm sorry,” says the Pendragon's son. As he speaks, the long shadow of his destiny stirs Albion to life; images form in the air around him, shifting and evanescing before the dragon's eyes. Serpents of sparks coil around blood-drop shoulders; shaggy figures dance, as tiny as the man they surround. Behind the so-called prince flash dragon-gold eyes, opening in the rock itself.

Images of magic. He is speaking not of the dragon's imprisonment, but of Merlin. The dragon's eyes widen in surprise.

 

 

Merlin becomes a frequent visitor. He never speaks; he sits with his back against the cold, impassive rock, and watches nothing. Sometimes, he plays with toys of sparks; makes tiny unicorns that whinny and stamp, or knights that run each other through and vanish into smoke. The dragon stirs on its rocky perch, and watches the draughts in the cavern twining themselves about their brother's hands, curious and shy. In its mind, the map that is destiny becomes a single page; this cavern, this moment. The dragon should be afraid – insofar as a dragon fears – of the mist that obscures the path ahead; and yet it finds that there is a comfort in the cosiness of ignorance, and in the company of this impermanent brother-son.

It is both amused and appalled to realise that Merlin has taught a dragon what it means to be human.

 

 

There comes a day, after a length of time the dragon has not thought to measure, when Merlin lets the little flaming birds that swoop about his head burn themselves out and fade, and stands up with a stiff, deliberate air. Determination, the dragon thinks. He leaves the cavern and the dragon listens to his footsteps, firm on the stone stairs; hears another set, fainter, and hears Merlin stop. His voice sounds, faintly, and someone else speaks in reply. There is a long silence before both sets of footsteps come again; they come back, towards the cavern.

Merlin appears in the tunnel mouth, his face a pale moth; steps out into the dim light, and the Pendragon son steps out behind him, taking up a place at his shoulder. He has the air of a guardsman, alert, positioned to protect his charge. Both pairs of eyes are fixed on the dragon; it grips the rock, lets its neck rise high, and resettles its wings.

Merlin shifts, and lets his weight lean back against the future king. Arthur Pendragon lays a possessive hand on the warlock's waist. And Albion, seen and unseen all around them, spreads out before the dragon a tapestry of green and sky-blue and gold; for the dragon alone, the cavern fills with a vision of flight over Albion in summer, a patchwork of wheat-fields and meadows studded with pools that glitter like stars.

Merlin looks up at the dragon and smiles knowingly, and on the tapestry a king and his retinue ride out with banners unfurled. The vision remains, long after the Pendragon and his warlock are gone; and as Albion caresses its wings with an illusory breeze, remembering past joys and hopeful for the future once again, the dragon understands. These firefly men, these sparks that fly up from destiny's eternal fire, know in their very bones something a dragon does not: that humanity and mortality are not the enemies of greatness, not at all.

**Author's Note:**

> No idea at all where this one came from. Hope you like :)


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